Take Your Medicine...

That's what we always hear.

"Do what your physician tells you, take your medications as prescribed and things will get better."

But suppose the very thing that's meant to help causes harm? Who tells you these things? The physician? Yeah, right. The physician, who no matter how many times you call, you can't seem to ever speak to. That physician? Ooooookkkkkaaaaayyyyy. Uhhhh...just no.

Thank goodness there's an Internet with tons of information at our fingertips. What did we do before this great and wonderful invention? Wander around in the dark, groping our way through our lives without a clue I guess.

My husband has had this nagging cough since about 2 weeks prior to his discharge from the rehab facility. I questioned it over and over with the staff. I never got any type of answer from them. It was a deep, rattling cough, like he had bronchitis or something. No fevers, no chills, no other symptoms, just his nasty sounding cough. I chalked it up to him having some type of cold or allergies. When he was released into my care on April 30th, I read the discharge notes given to me by the staff after we had gotten him settled in. There was a chest x-ray done and it was clear. No pneumonia or bronchitis. The "house" physician had written an order for Robitussin every 4 hours as needed for his cough. This cough continued. Sometimes not as bad as others but it was continuous and annoying.

I spoke with several people about this cough and finally was able to get another chest x-ray done 2 days ago. Again, it was negative. No fluid, no pneumonia, no bronchitis..nothing. As I told my mom about it she said, "There has to be something causing this cough. What about medicines, what's he taking?" I said, "he's only taking Insulin injections and Megestrol Acetate Suspension for his appetite. She said, "well how long has he been taking the suspension?" I said I don't know, let me look at the bottle of medicine which was sent home with him. The date on the prescription label was 4/14/09. She said, "look up that medicine and see what the side effects are." I did. Guess what one of the side effects are. Yep. You got it. Cough! Also, it can cause confusion, dry mouth, abnormal thinking, rash, sweating, edema (swelling), increased blood glucose readings! Why would someone give this to a diabetic? Surely there must be something else that can be used. He also had been having sweats at night. T-shirt would be soaked in the mornings. I wondered what caused that as well. Now I know.

I will speak with his physician tomorrow and ask him about this and see if there is something else we can use and if not to tell him I prefer him not to take this medication because of the great number of side effects he seem to have.

The lesson here. Research your meds. Know what the side effects are and report them if you have them. Physicians are only human. Don't be afraid to question. I took him off of this medication on my own, but it's usually recommended that folks not do that. Since this particular medicine isn't linked to anything life threatening, like hypertension, I made the decision to see if he'd do better without it. Things are okay thus far. I will talk with his physician in the morning and let him know what's going on.

We're holding on for now.